Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Archana Barua1
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Guwahati, Assam, India, 781039
archana@iitg.ernet.in
Abstract
India’s northeastern state of Assam (ancient Prāgjyotishapur and Kāma
rūpa), known for its goddess shrine, the Devipītha (Seat of the goddess)
Kāmākhyā, has enriched the mosaic of the Indian religious tradition with
its unique contribution in Shaktism and Tantrism. Shaktism and Tantrism
represent a particular phase of religion which was in the main personal
and esoteric. Assam or the northeast of Bengal, is the source from which
Shākta-Tāntric beliefs and practices found its Austric-Tibetan base around
Devipitha Kamakhya and it became a strong Tantric center that remained
influential in Bengal, Orissa-centric Eastern regions that resulted in man-
tra, yantra, çakra, etc.
In this context, this article tries to address some such interesting fea-
tures of the Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā and her various transformations.
© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2016. Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX.
52 The Pomegranate 17.1-2 (2015)
Shiva, the powerful God of the Hindu Trinity, the Lord over
death and destruction, the self-controlled and celibate, is essentially
the god of the yogis and interestingly enough, Shakti Tantras also
present Him more as an enjoyer of life ( bhogi) with his passionate
love for his spouse (Shakti) than a life renouncer. For the devotees,
Shiva, the Mahādeva, is the great god who is regularly prayed to
along with his Shakti as follows:
Om Sarva Mangal Manglāye Shivay Sarvārth Sādhike
Sharanye Trayambake Gauri Nārayaani Namostu Te!
4. Ibid.
We bow to the divine goddess in all existence who resides in the form
of energy. We bow to her, we bow to her, we continually bow to her.
the ten different forms, the Dasamahavidya, came out of the third eye of Sati to
frighten Shiva into granting consent. These different forms of the Mother Goddess,
namely Kāli, Tāra, Mahavidyā, Sodasi, Bhubanesvari, Bhairavi, Chinnamastā, Sun-
dari, Bagālamukhi and Dhumāvati are enshrined in different temples dedicated to
her on the Nilachal. They contain no image and are known as Sakti peethas. The object
of worship consist of a stone each moistened by a natural spring. This accommodates
other minor goddesses within the Kāmākhyā cult. Other non-Hindu and local deities
could also be accommodated as per various forms and manifestations of the Dark
and powerful Goddess Kāmākhyā who is none other than Kāli, Tāra and Shakti.
10. Hugh Urban, “The Path of Power,” 97–8.
the mother earth getting heavy with crops after divine menstruation.
During the annual Ambubachi Mela, the temple precincts are closed
to the worshippers as it is believed that the goddess, along with the
Earth, goes through her menstrual cycle. During this festival held in
the month of June (the seventh day of Āhar according to the Hindu
lunar calendar), during the height of the rainy season, the red hema-
tite present in the soil mixes with the water of the natural spring that
moistens the yoni, leading credence to the commonly held belief of a
menstruating goddess. Puranic (of the Puranas) literature thus refers
to the goddess on the Nilāchal as a primordial and, associated with
the fertility cult. The red color closely associated with goddess wor-
ship is the red seed or menstrual blood that flows out of the body of
a fertile woman who is not carrying a child.”11
The Kālika Purana, a work composed in the ninth century ce in
ancient Assam for glorifying Kāmākhyā, gives a new description of
Manobhāva Guhā. It says, “Inside the cave there exists a very lovely
pudendum on the stone which is 12 āngulas (9 cm) in width and
20 āngulas (16 cm) in length gradually narrowing and sloping. It is
reddish in colour like vermillion and saffron. On that female organ
resides the amorous Goddess Kāmākhyā. The primordial force
resides in five different forms. The goddess is supposed to have her
annual period in the month of Āsād (June-July) for 3 days, there after
the summer crop is planted in Assam.”12
Accordingly, the Tāntric goddess Kāmākhyā undergoes trans-
formations as does her counterpart Shiva. Here we find interest-
ing developments within the Shiva-Shakti cult that a shift is made
from Shiva as yogi and a renouncer to Shiva as bhogi and enjoyer as
per Tantric injunctions and requirements for replacement of Shiva-
Lingaraja with Kāmeswara Mahadeva, also identified with the res-
urrected Madana ( eros). Shiva remains the patron deity of the king
Kumara Bhaskarvarma, who once declared that he would not bow
his head before any one except “ash-adorned Shiva”; subsequently
the white Svāttika Shiva was replaced by the royal, red form of
Shiva, the Kāmeswara Shiva, at a time when the Mahā Gauri concept
came up from the unification of Visnumāya and Durga. Deka sug-
gests, “The Shiva was no more ‘the ash -adorned Siva’ (Lingaraja)
but became Kāmaeswara, who though was still smeared with ash, is
to be propitiated with red flowers and kumkuma (saffron, an item of
11. Kali Prasad Goswami, Kāmākhyā Temple (Guwahati: A.P.H. Publishing Corp.,
1998).
12. Pranav Jyoti Deva, Nilācala Kāmākhyā, 14.
The present day Kāmākhyā Temple was built by the Koch ruler
Naranarayana (Malladev) and his brother Chilarai (Sukladhvaj),
according to an inscription in the temple. However, the Darrang Raj
Vamsavali, a chronicle of the Koch royal family, records the recon-
struction of only the Sikhara (dome) of the Kāmākhyā Temple in
1565 ce by the architect Meghamukdam. It states that he tried to re-
build the dome twice with the original stone blocks that had fallen
down, but failed. As a result, he built it in the shape of a beehive
with bricks. The King also issued copper plates endowing land and
the service of different paiks (servitors) to the Kāmākhyā Temple.
These paiks consisted of Brahmans, Daivajna (astrologers), flower
suppliers, garland makers, washer-men, cleaners, carpenters, oil
pressers, sweetmeat makers, leather workers, cobblers, dancers,
ballad singers, weavers, goldsmiths, potters, fishermen and others.
Thousands of animals were also sacrificed. During the rule of the
Varman dynasty in Assam, types of Shiva proliferated in Kama-
rupa as Rudresvara, Siddheswava, Kedareswara, and Isāna along
with many local Shivas as Harupesvara and Hatupesvara. “Origi-
nally constructed in the 8th century during the Pāla dynasty in
Kāmarupa, renovated by Chila Rai and King Naranarayana is the
present temple of Kāmakhya as the ancient Kāmarupa temple was
destroyed in natural calamity and the ‘temple-less Goddess’ was
brought to ‘new roofless one,’ the roof of which was later provided
in 1565 ce renovation by Koch King Naranarayan and his general
Chilarai… We also find that a divine lineage to the Koch royal
dynasty was acknowledged during that time by the Brahmancal
order.”14 Within the temple premises, we can also find two full size
representational statues of Malladeva and Sukladhvaj.
According to a folk legend, the goddess, assuming the form of
a beautiful woman, used to dance nude within the closed doors of
the Temple at the time of the evening prayers. The Koch king Mal-
ladeva and his brother Sukladhvaj desired to see the dancing God-
dess and as suggested by the chief priest Kendu Kalai, they peeped
through a hole in the wall. She, however, got offended by the intru-
sion and tore off the head of the priest and turned the king and his
brother to stone. According to another version, the king and his
future descendants were henceforth, forbidden “to cast a look even
at her very hill” or they would die. Even today, descendants of the
Koch royal family pass by the hill under the cover of umbrellas.
14. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
18. Elizabeth Anne Benard, The Chinnamasta: The Awful Buuddhist and Tantric
Goddess (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2010 [1994]), 62.
19. Ibid., 62–63.
ders. Can the goddess in the Shakti and the Āgama scripture bestow
salvation or can she simply fulfill desires of the devotees, not taking
them to a desireless state? For this the goddess had to imbibe the
Kāmākhyā aspect, a blend of pravritti (desire and passion) and nivritti
(desirelessness/dispassion) in one, and finally she remains a combi-
nation of all these aspects in these various aspects. “Hindu Tantra
borrowed the goal of emancipation from rebirth from Bauddha
tantra, and Bouddha tantra in turn adopted the concept of visualiza-
tion (dhyana) and to merge with the deity, from the Hindu tantra.”20
In order to understand the mystery of this mysterious combination of
the magical with the religious, of desire and power and bondage in
the level of the phenomenal realm of trigunā-prakriti, and the ability
to bestow on her devotees the mantra of rising above that very bond-
age by rising above the mundaneness of the mundane, Kāmākhyā
remains a bitter sweet combination of Buddhist klesha as suffering
and Hindu ānanda. She is both Kāmeswari, kāma-isvari, the goddess
of desire, and the expiration of all the desires, and Kāmākhyā-kamma
= khyaya. “She is a three faceted Goddess synthesized from the
Hindu Sakti Tantra and Buddhist Anuttra Tantra or Vajratantra path.
She protects her devotees by destroying the enemies as Shakti, best
prosperity as Lakshmi,can grant emancipation from the cycle of
rebirth as Vajrayogini, also sexual pleasure as Vajravairocāni.”21 It is
at this juncture that mutual borrowing of ideas and rituals between
the two continued.
Let us place the myth in the larger context of Assam’s some
other agriculture- related myths that centered on Balabhadra the
earth–tiller, and Bhumi the Earth–mother, the larger background
of which provided a platform for accommodating of the Kāmākhyā
cult in Assam introduced for the first time by Naraka, the son of
Mother Earth whose mythical presence was felt near him in the
guise of his foster mother Kātyāyani. At a later phase when Naraka
himself changes his ways and the land gets its new Shakta-Tantric
name as Kāmarupa, the shrine gained its fame as the Yoni-pitha
Kamakhya.
This Tantric phase of the cult thus added power-centric interpre-
tations of some of the previous myths that also glorified either the
passions for sex-and love and the path of enjoyment (pravritti mārga)
following the Tantra-sanctioned deviations of the norm for the select
ones who can undergo such rituals. The Tantric phase could add the
mythical justification for the passion in love and sex that remained
confined to a select group of Tantric initiates and its secrecy and eso-
tericism has led to suspicion and conflict with the traditional modes
of worship as partially illustrated in the mythical figure of Vasistha,
particularly in his curse against the Yoni-mandali at Kamakhya. We
have also seen how at a later phase the cult underwent a Hinduisa-
tion phase that identified the shrine as strong Shakti-Tantric shrine
accommodating Dark and powerful deities across Buddhist –Hindu
Tantras and its local variations.
22. Niharranjan Mishra, Kamakhya: A Sociocultural Study (New Delhi: D.K .Print-
ers, 1960), 42–32.
23. Urban, “The Path of Power: Impurity.”
24. Patricia A. Dold, ”Reimagining Religious History through Women’s Song
Performance at the Kāmākhyā Temple Site,” in Re-Imagining South Asian Religions,
ed. Pashaura Singh and Michael Howly (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 129.
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